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Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, North Korean Leader, – photo credit – News Max

Former NBA basketball champion Dennis Rodman has launched a new basketball diplomacy effort by picking former NBA basketball players for a North Korean basketball exhibition game.  The American players will play against North Korea’s top basketball stars in the upcoming game.

Rodman, who is not shy about calling North Korean dictator and leader Kim Jong Un his “friend for life” is going to Pyongyang in celebration of Jong Un’s January 8^th birthday, according to Fox News.

Should anyone in America really care about this move by Rodman to use a basketball game as a diplomatic way to ease tensions between the United States and North Korea?  In a word: NO!

It seems clear that for the past two decades Rodman has been a man and basketball player in pursuit of his own mind-bending absurdities and by establishing a friendship with the 30-year-old leader Rodman is simply now over his head.  The former basketball star has been questioned on several occasions about using his friendship with the North Korean leader to ease some that nation’s horrendous human rights problems like the “indiscriminate killings, torture and rapes,” reports Fox News.

Yet, this basketball player seems to be either oblivious or simply operating in another physical universe. He recently commented that even with the recent horrendous murder of Kim’s uncle by way of feeding him to a pack of hungry dogs was not his concern.

So in truth, what is Rodman’s concern and what does he hope to accomplish with his so-called “Basketball Diplomacy?”

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Big East Tournament Teams

Prove Unworthy in NCAA Battles

            It was a stupid, stupid thing to do and the results were highly predictable.  “It” in this case was the lunacy of  the NCAA’s selection committee on Selection Sunday putting eleven Big East teams into the NCAA 2011 Men’s Basketball Tournament and top-seeding two of those teams (one at #1 and another at #2).  The Big East has done nothing to justify that kind of reverence from the selection committee; and more importantly, history predicted they would do little.   

           Given that the Big East’s track record in the 2010 tournament was a combined record of 8-8 futility from its eight entrants and none of them made the Final Four -- one can only regard this year's selection committee as eaters of loco weed.  At present, only the Big East Champion UConn Huskies and the under-rated Marquette Golden Eagles are still in the NCAA hunt.  Some mighty good teams like Colorado, Cleveland State, Missouri State, and Harvard had to stay at home because the selection committee decided that mediocre teams from the Big East were more exciting and more competitive than strong teams from other areas. 

           Rajjpuut suggests that the selection committee stifle its erection for the Big East and adjust their thinking in terms of fairness.  For example, in a 16-team league only the top seven teams should qualify at a maximum; in a 12-team league only the top 5 qualify at max; in a ten team league a maximum of four qualifiers; and a maximum of three qualifiers from an eight-team league.  The play of Butler (from the always ignored Horizon League), to name just one upset-hungry fivesome, both this year and last shows that the top teams in some of the lesser-reputed conferences deserve far more respect . . . and that goes for tough runner-ups in those conferences.  Green Bay-born Rajjpuut, for one believes that Colorado would have easily handed every Big East entrant except for U. Conn its head had they been allowed into the tournament.  The Big East largely sucked this year and last, the only question is “Why?”**

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

**   Rajjpuut suggests that teams that are struggling for high positions in their conferences gain a certain edge that mediocre teams never get.  Certainly teams in 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th place in an over-rated conference have little to brag about.  Only two of the Big East losses have been to other Big East teams this year.